I have a huge pile of genealogy stuff, what do I do with it?

By Veronidae (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The title of this post addresses issues that are both theoretical and practical. It also raises issues that deal with deep psychological, cultural and social issues. There is a fine line between collecting and hoarding. I see an extremely huge disparity between what some people consider an excessive amount of genealogy related documents, paper etc. and what others consider acceptable. I have dealt with people who have one small box of documents, photographs and papers and are obsessed with all the clutter. When collections get big enough, we call them libraries and museums.

It is also my experience that few genealogists face the inevitable. We are all going to die, just like all our ancestors. There are two main strategies for coping with the inevitable; pass the work along to someone else or transfer everything to a publicly available repository. The key to success in doing either is to confront the issue long before it becomes a crisis. Unfortunately, there will always be those people who are so possessive and obsessive that they antagonize other family members to the point that no one in the family cares about their work and are glad to get rid of it when they pass away, no matter how "valuable" it may actually be. If you are one of these possessive people, you will not at all be interested in what I have to say on this subject. Genealogists can become as mentally ill as anyone else in the population.

The issue here is both a matter of scale and quality, hence the one box issue I already mentioned. But first a few definitions for clarity and convenience.

Genealogical data can consist of both original documents and copies. Some documents can be a copy and an original at the same time. For example, an original handwritten family group sheet could be a treasured document from an ancestor, or it could be merely a copy of information from an easily available source. Think of a family Bible record written by a great-great-grandmother. Most genealogists would treat this as a family treasure. But what about a pile of photocopies made from documents in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah? The disparity should be obvious.

The real question starts with the idea of whether or not the items in the collection can be easily replaced. Are they unique or merely copies of records that can be obtained by some minor effort? Do the items have real sentimental value?

At this point, I need to clarify the concept of a collectable. People collect everything you can think of. One person I know had a huge collection of thousands of the commercial paper toothpick containers you can pick up in restaurants. Genealogical collections must be judged by their content. A pile of paper may be impressive, but does the content have any real genealogical value?

I have people come to me all the time with an old floppy disk full of "valuable" family data they entered into a computer years before, only to find out that the disk contains a few hundred names of recent family members with no sources or documentation. Further, in a few minutes, we find the same information readily available online in any number of family trees. Sometimes the individual genealogist or his or her family are not in the best position to determine the value of the work that has been done.

The basic concept involved in a preservation effort is to digitize the items, make sure the digital copies are in a permanently maintained collection such as the FamilySearch.org Family Tree and then provide for the conservation and preservation of the originals. I find it incredible that someone would spend their entire life gathering documents and information about their family, only to act defensive when someone shows an interest in preserving it all.

Let's look at the pile and what it may contain. In each category, I will comment on the value of the items.

Category One: Original artifacts, documents and photos
You should always take definite steps to identify and preserve all of these items. These items should also be photographed and digitized and included in an online repository such as the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. Labels, descriptions and stories should accompany any such objects or documents. For detailed instructions, see the Library of Congress Preservation website. Some really valuable items or documents should be given to repositories such as university special collections libraries and museums.

Category Two: Genealogical notes and gathered information
Too many of us, myself included, spend all our time gathering more data when we really need to focus on what we have already gathered. I am overwhelmed when I see the amount of information some people, myself included, have gathered and failed to organize or preserve. The real question about this category of items is whether or not anyone can "pick up" where I left off? This is one of the most persuasive arguments for collaboration.

Category Three: Items of interest
We all have that pile of stuff we find interesting or helpful, notes, papers, copies of programs, syllabus material, handouts from conferences etc. This is mostly junk and will not be missed by posterity.

Category Four: Books and publications
Books are books. Some books have value as books, others only have value for the material contained therein. Genealogy surname or histories should be donated to a library, digitized and put online or otherwise disposed of. Unique publications, such as privately published family histories can be donated to libraries where they can be digitized and further preserved, but the rest of the books should be treated as books.

The concept here is to take the time to evaluate the pile and take steps to move it, throw it away or organize and categorize it before you get too old or die. Get busy.

I just inherited a huge pile of genealogy. Now what?

From time to time, as has happened recently, I hear from people who have just "inherited" a huge pile of genealogically related records, documents, photos etc. This usually occurs upon the death or disability of a relative who has spent a considerable period of time amassing this collection of information. In some cases, this occurrence results in the loss of all of the information when it is summarily thrown out and destroyed. But in some rare cases, the recipients are mindful of the value of the information and it is preserved in some form or another. Sometimes the cache of records is maintained in a basement, garage or other storage area until some interested relative comes along and retrieves the records. This has happened to me personally a number of times. I have "saved" quite a number of collections over the years.

The question is, what do you do with this pile of stuff? The answer to this question depends on a lot of factors, most importantly, the interest and ability of the recipient. Most, if not nearly all, of the recipients of such information have not volunteered to receive the pile of records. Many such recipients have neither the time, the ability, nor the inclination to "carry on" the work of the genealogist. There are, unfortunately, very few record repositories that are willing to accept random genealogical papers. The rare exceptions are collections that usually involve prominent historical figures in the geographic areas covered by the repositories' interests.

One interesting effort to preserve these collections is The Genealogical Library Center, Inc. run by Arlene Eakle and her husband in Tremonton, Utah. This is an excellent example of how one or two people can make a difference in preserving these valuable documents. If the collection is unique or has real historical value, there may also be a museum, historical society, state or local library, university special collections library or other institution that is interested in the collection.

The main issue, as described by Arlene, is that the heirs or other family members do not appreciate the value of what the genealogist has accumulated over the years. It is imperative that anyone interested in genealogy be aware of the possibility of the loss of the collections of fellow genealogists and offer to rescue the information if possible.

From my own experience, I would suggest that steps be taken to preserve the information. Of course, the best thing that can happen is that the genealogist will make adequate provisions for sharing and preserving their own research. This often does not happen because of the solitary nature of genealogical research and the type of person attracted to the pursuit. In order to find someone involved and interested, you may have to search well beyond the confines of your immediate family.

First, the nature and extent of the research needs to be evaluated. If the person receiving the collection does not have the background to evaluate the records, then they need to seek help from someone who does. This can be a family member or someone from the greater genealogical community. Ideally, you will find someone who wants to acquire the entire collection. But what if you are the interested person? How do you handle a large amount of information?

What if you determine that the entire collection is nothing more or less than a pile of photocopies and extracted records? Perhaps, the best way to approach this situation is to see how much of what is present is already online in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree or some other large online unified family tree program. One of the collections of records I acquired was nothing more than copies of other, reasonably available records, mostly photocopied family group records. The first level of examination is to determine what, if anything in the collection, is unique and irreplaceable? As I already mentioned, this may include consulting with people who have more expertise in this area.

The value of genealogical data is directly proportional to the degree to which the collection contains original documents, letters, diaries, journals, photographs etc. Any original documents should be preserved even if digital copies of the documents have been made. The value of original documents cannot be underestimated. Steps should be taken to preserve these valuable original documents or artifacts. For information on this process of preservation see Preserving Your Family Treasures from the Library of Congress. There is no substitute for sitting down and looking at each and every document and record in the collection. Without direct examination of the records, assuming that some pile of records is unimportant is extremely dangerous and detrimental to the process of preservation. I am always amazed at what some people with throw away as unusable or of no interest. Where you set the threshold of what to keep and what to throw away is a highly personal decision.

The best possible outcome of any collection is that it is preserved and made available to the family in the future. One way to do this is to digitize any and all of the records and then organize the digital copies online. The best place to do this, in my opinion, is on FamilySearch.org. Presently, the Family Tree program and the Memories program on this website can accommodate huge amounts of family information. Because of the nature of the organization, FamilySearch has in the past and will in the future make every possible effort to preserve the information included in the website.

What if the "collection" is primarily a computer file, either a GEDCOM file or in some other program? This presents a restoration problem, but makes the transition to another more current program possible in some cases. The value of the information contained in the program is, again, directly proportional to the amount of documentation and a record of the sources where the information was obtained. If the same information can be found online, it may only be necessary to compare what is already in the file to what is readily available about the family online.

Do not ignore the issue of preserving and conserving the collection. Take action to ensure that the valuable information is preserved for family members.

The Pan-European Newspaper Digitalization Project

http://www.theeuropeanlibrary.org/tel4/newspapers/issue/Jaunākās Ziņas/1915/1/23

http://www.theeuropeanlibrary.org/tel4/newspapers/issue/Jaunākās Ziņas/1915/1/23

Europeana.au and The European Library have been involved in an historic cultural project, from the Europeana-Newspapers.au website, here is an explanation of the project;

Our project is:

• Funded under the European Commission’s CIP 2007 – 2013 programme;
• A three-year project, running until January 2015;
• Aggregating 18 million historic newspaper pages for Europeana and The European Library;
• Converting 10 million newspaper pages to full text. This will help users quickly search for specific articles, people and locations mentioned within the newspaper;
• Creating a special content viewer to improve online newspaper browsing.Try the prototype;
• Building tools that will allow professionals to better assess the quality of newspaper digitisation in relation to level of detail, speed and costs.

On the 22-23 January 2015 an international meeting was held in the National Library of Estonia which concluded the pan-European newspaper digitalization project. About 40 specialists of digital libraries from 23 countries were expected to participate. Here is an outline of what the project accomplished from the National Library of Estonia:

As part of the Europeana Newspapers project, The European Library developed a historic newspapers browser that enables users to perform full-text searches in millions of historic newspaper pages. The browser contains around 30 million newspaper pages from 25 libraries in 23 European countries. Users are able to search:

• full text of more than 10 million historic newspaper pages
• named entity recognition in Dutch, German and French to enable searches of names of people and geographic places
• metadata records of over 20 million historic newspaper pages.

You can see the results of the project on The European Library's Historic Newspaper Browser.

I am continually amazed at the huge number of digitalization projects going on around the world almost continually.